


Introductions

by yosjiefo



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, ares/lene and sylvia/claud are mentioned, not at all a ship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 21:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14065905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yosjiefo/pseuds/yosjiefo
Summary: Coirpre has known himself as General Hannibal's son his entire life and nothing else.





	Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> I really just wanted to explore my favorite FE4 character since it didn’t seem like many cared for him at all, and well… I may have gotten carried away.

"My name is Coirpre. I'm General Hannibal's son..."

He says it with a bit of unease in his voice. Though he is used to the large number of mercenaries and soldiers that enter through his father's mansion, this is the first time he's been formally introduced to someone of high rank. 

_ Be on your best behavior. _

"Who's the wifey?"

He hears the conversation quite a few times, and the answer is always the same: there is none. Sometimes it's his dad who says it, other times someone else pitches in. This time it's the latter, and there's a ruckus afterwards that quickly subsides into more serious matters. 

The people look upon Coirpre with an emotion he later pins as pity, but for now he's uncertain; all he knows is that their faces contort in a weird way and their eyes sometimes droop, not as if they've been kicked but as if they may have become woozy all of a sudden.

* * *

"Should I have a mother?" he asks later when his father returns to the mansion. He's not sure where his father went, but he was told it was 'something important' when he asked one of the familiar faces meandering around. He barely gives time for his father to take a step in before he springs the question, causing the armored man to jolt a bit in surprise.

There is no rebuttal, but after some time the old man asks, "Did someone tell you that?"

Coirpre walks with his father, taking his lance from him; the weight of it is a bit too much for a boy with such a small frame and he falls a bit with it until the general takes it back from him. He gives him a light tussle through his blond locks, a merry chuckle gracing his lips. Though his son was not of much help, the older man thanks him anyway.

"A few soldiers said it was odd..." At last, he answers, mostly to divert attention away from his blunder. Finding not much else to fiddle with, he looks down to his hands— hands that he balls into light fists.

Hannibal sighs, but there's a light quality to his voice. It is not one of heavy weight but Coirpre can't quite tell what this was either— it was neither relief nor sorrow, but perhaps somewhere in between. "What a shame that is then."

"Is it?"

"Make your own judgments, Coirpre. So long as they are sound, that is all I ask..."

The two's backs recede down the hallway, the clack of the general's armor synchronizing with the clicks of the child's shoes.

* * *

He's a bit older now, and he has decided to become a healer. Though the people herald his father as the 'Shield of Thracia,' ( and he finds himself liking the sound of that ) it is undeniable how he tumbles so under blades and spears. His father says there were a few items the convent left with him in Darna: two of them were staves.

Perhaps his birth mother was a healer, Hannibal muses. It is possible that the blond has a gift for magic, and when he asked if that would let him help his father, he was given an affirmative answer. To him, that was all he needed to know before he set his heart on it.

However, there is one staff that does not seem to do anything no matter how much he wills it to. It's a beautiful staff with an intricate design— two gemstones, one red, one green, lie in it with tassels flying off of it. The staff almost looks as if it could be a weapon if one were to only reverse which side they use.

"Ah… you’re still worried about that rod, huh?"

The woman at his side was Altena, daughter of King Travant. She occasionally visited the mansion and he at times visited her father’s castle. She looked at him with a soft look in her eye, one that betrayed the usual fierce sharpness that they contained, and it was this compassion of hers that coaxed him to speak to her when normally he kept himself distant from others.

“It’s one of the only things I’ve kept with me from before I left Darna… I’d like to use it just once!!” His usually reserved voice came out as much more exasperated than he expected, and though it startled the princess, her face quickly bloomed to have a smile on it.

“Don’t worry yourself too much over it, Coirpre. Look, I’m sure you’ll be able to use it one day. Just keep at gaining experience with staves, and I am certain I shall see you running down these halls showing it off.”

Though he nods, the troubled expression remains upon the priest's countenance as he flips the staff around in his hands. A strange feeling bubbles inside of him, telling him he may use it but not now— not yet.

* * *

Coirpre's never thought of scent until now.

The perfume in the room hits him harshly though. Whilst his father is out again, he had been left under the care of one of the other men in the manor— a man who took to inviting in a traveling band of suspicious characters.

The entertainers and Thracian soldiers alike have a rowdy get-together, the pleasant buzz overcoming them with their drink, and Coirpre feels overwhelmed between it and the stench in the air. He thinks to make himself appear as small as he can away from the crowd, that is until a woman with black hair approaches him.

"Hey, are you doing okay there?"

"Hn...? Yeah. I'm fine," he answers somewhat out of it. He thinks that will be the end of it, but the conversation makes its way past pleasantries.

"You look miserable," she says with a frown on her face. "I understand."

"I don't like dancers." It's not a clear reply, lacking relevancy, but Coirpre says it anyway. 

There's an awkward silence between them, one that the priest does not think to fill. He expects her to scurry away— after all, she had to be one of the dancers too. He had watched her enter with the performers and she wore a similar outfit to the ones that had shown their dances to the soldiers. The two of them watch the men throw themselves at the entertainers, the uncomfortable sight providing no solace, until she speaks up again:

"I hate being here too."

Coirpre quirks an eyebrow. "Then why are you with them?"

"I was sold to those men over there," she points, her voice hush as she leans in to whisper in the priest's ear. He smells the perfume even stronger now, and he makes no effort to hide his distaste with it as he clamps a hand over his nose and mouth. Though she likely noticed, she doesn't move away nor is she deterred from continuing to talk. "I want to be a normal child instead..."

He looks to her with some surprise. "How old are you?"

When she answers, the dawn of realization comes to him that she is still a child much like him. He had assumed otherwise based mostly on her build; it was not much different from the other dancers in the troupe, and he thinks to ask about them.

"No, no... I'm the only child with them. They... don't train the slaves into dancers unless they have the body for it, you see."

"Lara!!" a voice rings out. It's an older looking man, the likely leader of the group, and he waves her over with a snarl. The girl, Lara, heaves a sigh.

"It looks like they want me to perform now," she explains, clear reluctance dripping from her voice. She waves Coirpre a farewell before she turns on her heel and rushes to regroup with the others, the speed perhaps out of a sense of fear of the consequences if she were not to hurry, and he barely notices the sound of her jewelry and castanets as she runs away from his corner in the room.

The corner brought a reprieve to her only for a little bit, he thinks, and perhaps he was the only child she would see for a while. After all, if they perform for these kinds of men, it's not very often young ones would be around.

He justifies his escape from the room just before her show based on a sense of sympathy for her, a desire not to see someone much like him being forced to be watched intently and ogled by fiends in clever masks.

* * *

Two years have passed from that run-in with the dancer, and Coirpre's mind goes back to thoughts of her. He wonders if this is something akin to what she had felt.

He is in a jail cell with three other children. The other three shake whilst Coirpre himself feels himself slack against the walls. He recalled being out to make a purchase when suddenly the ground was taken away from under him. He attempted to reason with the man who hoisted him up into the air but diplomacy was foolhardy. He ended up in the same place that they had intended from the start: Fort Kieves.

There is little to do but resign himself to the situation he is in. He is to be kept here and ushered away to wherever it is they intended to, damn his mission and all. Would it be too late when his father heard where he went? Surely the villagers would send a report to him, but to ask his father to mobilize his troops to the border seemed inconvenient.

“I… I wanna see my… my grandma…!” one of his peers cries. 

“Romeo... w-we have to be qu—”

“I wanna see her…!!” he continued. The boy next to him shrinked back, uncertain what to do until he decided to scoot closer to the door to hear if anybody was coming to get them.

“I wanna see my big brother too,” the third of them speaks up. “I bet he would rescue me if he knew I was gonna be sent to Belhalla!”

“We’re not gonna be sent to Belhalla, a-are we?!” the second boy shrieks, evidently forgetting his reminder to Romeo about keeping their voices down.

The third boy nods gravely. “Yep. You better resign yourself to it, Lucia!”

“H-How do you know, Yubel?”

“Heard about it from the guards. They’re gonna put us in a fight and sacrifice us!”

Romeo continues to complain, “I don’t wanna! Why can’t they jus’ pick on someone their own size?!”

“They only pick seven to thirteen year olds, they said!” Yubel adds. “If I was a li’l older, maybe they would’ve just ignored me…”

So he was on the precipice of qualifying for this kidnapping. Becoming thirteen was the reason he had been able to set out alone on this important mission, but it also became the same reason he was being tossed into this situation along with three kids who evidently already knew each other. They could maybe band together and give comfort, but Coirpre took to his corner to ruminate alone.

* * *

“C’mon! No use sticking around now.”

Coirpre finds himself hoisted up in the air again, taken by one of the fort’s intruders. He had watched a variety of different kinds of people, a brunet young man in white armor, a blonde swordswoman, and a blue-haired knight, all enter the cell after the sound of the lock being picked resounded, picking up the other children kept captive and taking them out back towards the daylight. The fourth savior to enter was another man with blue hair, though this one was an archer.

“Oof, you’re heavier than you look, kid!” he complains, though he still carries on with him with a grin across his face. “It’s okay, I’ll bring you back to your village. Just tell me which one it is, okay?”

He notices how the man continues to beam whenever he looks back at him, even as he is struggling against the reinforcements coming from the forests to the west. Arrow after arrow is shot against the incoming band of aggressors, and Coirpre watches as his escort suffers a few wounds from combat. The man seems to lack a vulnerary, and the priest wishes to aid him for his help but his staff had remained in the village he was resting at. He keeps quiet on his ability to heal, having little other choice as his protector keeps taking the brunt of the attack.

A few times, Coirpre requests he be put down— he can run perfectly well to safety himself, but the archer refuses. His sense of chivalry seems too high, and so the blond acquiesces to him. When they finally make it with a few veteran comrades holding a defensive line against the barbarians, the bowman drops him down, that forced smile meant to comfort the priest still slapped across his visage.

As the village elder converses with the archer, no doubt thanking him for the rescue, Coirpre fetches his heal staff and rushes over just at the end of the conversation.

“Sir! Wait a moment.”

“Huh? What is it, kid?” he asks, bending down to maintain eye contact a little more easily with him. He realizes something and frowns before correcting himself, “Master Coirpre, right?”

_ Ah, so they have him calling him that too. _

He doesn’t give an answer but he draws closer to mend his escort’s wounds. A soft glow emits from his staff and onto the other much to his surprise, and after a few bemused moments, the teenager laughs.

“Wow, you’re pretty good with that, you know? Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure to be of use with you helping me out like this.”

The man waves goodbye as he retreats back to join his forces. Coirpre hears a hearty chuckle next to him coming from the village leader and he looks to him, confused. 

“All’s well that ends well. I wish I had something to give that young man though as thanks for rescuing you…” 

Coirpre nods, clutching his staff a little tighter. He wavers for a moment before formally announcing, “I think I’ll be heading out tomorrow morning. Thank you, Sir, for having me.”

* * *

“You! You’re Master Coirpre, aren’t you?”

To think that the priest would be running into the very man that saved him so soon again. The blond nodded but brought a finger to his lips to shush the other.

“Ack, sorry. I was just surprised to see you.”

“Me too,” Coirpre replies. “What are you doing here?”

“We were running and then we got taken captive. We have a friend we need to be saving,” the man explained before breaking out into a frustrated groan. “What an embarrassment to be the ones who need saving now… Just after I said I wouldn’t be holding him back too…”

“I see.”

A flicker of an epiphany flashes across the blue haired man’s eyes and he leans forward through the cell. “You can get us out, can’t you?”

The two men with the archer suddenly perked up at the conversation, seeming ready to egg the boy on. Coirpre shook his head.

“I would like to thank you for saving me, but I don’t know if I can right now.”

Sure, he could try and convince his father about how this man saved him, but he admittedly still knew little of these three. They were good people, he reasoned, but he knew that they were against the Empire. When he had returned home, he was told he had narrowly escaped the child hunts— an act being conducted by the Grannvale Empire. Little bits of discussion within Castle Meeds revealed that Thracia was allied with the Empire presently. If his father was aware of the child hunts, there must be a resolute reason he was still fighting for Thracia. He would have to ask his father about it later.

He instead now watched as the archer’s shoulders slumped. “Drats…”

* * *

Coirpre watches from a distance as the teenager— Lugh Faris, so he claimed— talked with his father. He recognized the brunet as one of the people that had come rushing into the jail cell to rescue the kidnapped children. Judging by how he was speaking and how the three captured men flocked to him with conspiratorial whispers, the priest reasoned he must be their leader and excused himself from the guards to retrieve something from his temporary guest room. When he returned, it sounded as if the group of fugitives were to leave the castle so it was with hurried steps that the blond approached him.

“Hello!”

The brunet turned around to the source of the voice, a similar sense of recognition crossing him. “Oh, you’re that boy we met in Kelves… What are you doing here?”

“Hannibal is my father,” he introduced himself. He held out the item he went to go fetch towards the other man as he continued to explain, “Here… please take this. It’s a Warp Staff, a powerful magic item.”

“Oh, okay… Thank you.” The older boy gingerly took the item from it, staring at it with a sense of marvel. 

His father cleared his throat before declaring, “The sun is setting. You should be on your way, Lugh.”

“Yes, thank you for everything, General Hannibal,” Lugh answered, determination searing his gaze. “I won’t forget this!”

With that, the group left with Carion leading the way. When they were gone, the priest let out a relieved sigh. Now he had managed to repay the group for their kindness in the way that the village elder could not at the time.

“That would be Lord Leif, I would say…”

Coirpre snapped his head up to look at his father inquisitively. “Lugh is?” He could recall bits of talk of a rebel group being run by a lost prince by the same name Hannibal just uttered. His father nodded, and the both of them looked out the same door the so-called rebels had left through, a strange note in the air surrounding them.

* * *

About a year had passed since his first encounter with Lord Leif. Since then, he had heard word of going-ons of northern Thracia: Leonster’s missing prince had arrived and taken back his castle, much of Friege had been repelled, and a rebel army had risen from Isaach— an army led by the very man who had just rescued him from his hostage situation in Luthecia Castle.

Though Sir Seliph had been quick to leave, urged on by his adviser, Coirpre found himself in the company of the same teenager who had been escorted to his father’s mansion.

“Lugh?”

“Ah, right… I DID introduce myself to you as that back then. You’re Hannibal’s son…”

“I know your real name. Where’s the people who were with you?” Coirpre asked as he mounted himself on Leif’s horse with the aid of its master— another new thing. He wondered if the prince had always had a steed with him back then too.

“I wager going back home. I chose to join Prince Seliph’s army on my own— er… well, with Nanna and Finn too. Wait, do you even know who those two are?”

Coirpre shook his head, but that gesture did not seem to register with the prince as he kept his gaze straight ahead, his steed galloping away with haste.

“Your father’s at Kapathogia, right?!” he yelled to be heard through the wind rushing past them. Left with no choice but to follow his example, Coirpre yelled back:

“Yes!”

* * *

“Are you Coirpre?” one of the women in the liberation army comes up asking him. She had just finished performing for a few of the people he supposes he would now be calling his peers, and though he had wished to look away, he found himself too weary in the moment to do so. In his moment of weakness after healing the wounds of one of the horseback soldiers, immediately being put to work after his rescue, he succumbed to the temptation to watch the woman’s dance and had felt a strange rejuvenating sensation at the sight of it. It was almost as if it inspired him to keep moving.

He wonders if her dance had the same effect on others. This was not how he had felt when he had seen the entertainers dance at the mansion— at least, none of the dancers before Lara had given such a morale boost for him. Maybe it had something to do with the setting too though— in the midst of bloodshed, it came as a welcome reprieve instead of something flashy, a reminder of oppression and child slavery. The green-haired woman seemed to dance because she earnestly yearned to aid her comrades, and he supposed out of his gratitude, he ought to listen to her.

“Ah… yes, that’s right.”

She looks upon him with a sad kind of smile, her voice soothing as she comments, “So you’re an orphan too, huh…” Somehow, when she said it, it did breed a seed of melancholy with him. He frowns partly because of that feeling, partly because he knows he should not be so ungrateful. General Hannibal had raised him, never deceiving him on their relation or lack thereof, and he had spent his happiest days with him. Yet when Lene pointed it out, a foreign sense of loss permeated through his very being.

He wasn’t sure what it was about her, but its reason most definitely had something to do with her; he could figure that much out.

“Do you remember anything of your childhood?” Her voice brought him back to reality again. 

He hesitated before he answered, “No, none of it. I guess I was just a baby when my father found me in Darna.” 

For some reason that made her eyes grow wide and she almost seemed to leap towards him with an intense fervor. “You were also in Darna?!”

“You know Darna?”

She began to share her tale: of Darna, of what little she suspected of her mother, of her motives and trials and tribulations. She ended it with, “...I’m not all that good yet, but I’m completely self-taught.”

“Wow, Lene, that’s great.” Her story greatly differed from that of Lara. Though Lene too had started dancing when she was but a child, she was not coerced into it. Instead, she took to it with a sense of hope as opposed to submission, a far-off hope in his opinion, and she kept at it with her own devotion and willpower. Though she claimed to not have any kind of talent for it, he knew with what little experience he had that she was wrong: a dancer with the ability to spread energy with her moves could be nothing short of extraordinary. He couldn’t help but mutter, “I guess I’ve had it wrong about you…”

Pressing her lips into a tight line, she looked at him carefully before saying, “Coirpre, you don’t like dancers, do you…”

“Well, I didn’t before but I like you, Lene.”

He wasn’t sure what compelled him to say something like that. It was a straightforward answer he could barely describe the mechanics behind: even if Lene had inspired profound sadness in him, it was almost as if she were the light that came to defeat that darkness that crept in. There was a familiarity to her, so indescribable yet so curious with its lack of reason that he supposes his head lost the inhibition and formality that kept him at bay.

His answer seemed to please her, for she merely let out a giggle and a word of thanks— one no less genuine than his declaration to her.

* * *

“Coirpre, Lewyn wishes to talk to you for a bit.”

It is at night while the group rested in one of their seized castles that Prince Seliph calls for the priest. He had seen the tactician earlier when Lewyn had told him he was ready to begin to wield tomes and contribute in the actual combat portion of the war. If it was not to speak of promotion, what else was there to discuss?

Regardless, he nods and follows the prince to meet with the former ruler. When he enters the room, the prince is dismissed, giving the two privacy.

Or, at least, that is what he thought until he spots Lene also waiting in the room. Coirpre looks towards Lewyn with confusion etched across his features. What use was there to have a discussion with the both of them? She danced, he healed. The two did not often interact with one either, her staying at the side of her lover whilst he remained with his adoptive father. 

When Lewyn noticed him come in, he gestures for him to come further into the room.

“You may want to sit down for this one.”

Taking his advice, Coirpre pulled one of the chairs next to Lene and plopped himself down in it. The air felt tense around them despite Lene’s peppy smile, and there was a long drawn-out silence before Lewyn parted his lips again to speak.

“You two ought to know something. It’s about your parents.”

* * *

He felt his breath hitch. The world seemed to spin around him and he felt himself tumble down to the ground, his fingers still tightly wound around his keepsake.

Just an hour ago he heard Ares screaming, everyone rushing towards the commotion that the man was causing. It was natural as the knight’s lover had been slain in battle. Her lifeless body was brought back to the castle, her blood still warm to the touch. Though some offered pity to Ares, Lewyn simply looked towards the priest.

“You can solve this with that staff of yours.”

“I… I can’t heal wounds that killed someone…”

The tactician shook his head. “Not with the staff you’re thinking of. Wasn’t there a staff that your mother left with you when you were dropped off at the covenant? One you could not find use for?”

Coirpre found himself unable to protest for the minute Ares had heard it, he had turned his attention towards him too.

“Bring it out here.”

Left with no choice but to agree, Coirpre had fetched the staff with the two gemstones and tassels decorating it. A confident grin graced Lewyn’s face as he laid his eyes upon it.

“I knew he’d leave it behind too. That there is the Valkyrie Staff.”

“The Valkyrie Staff? Why do you know of it?”

Though he had asked the question, he was not given an answer but instead a push towards Lene’s corpse. Everybody there watched him expectantly as he approached her.

“If you can’t do it, you don’t have to push yourself, Coirpre,” Altena’s voice reached him. “We cannot afford to lose you too...”

“Watch him,” Lewyn instructed. “I know he’ll be able to do it.”

With a deep breath and a bit of pain racing through his limbs, Coirpre braced himself against it as he called upon both his heirloom and the quintessence of the dancer. The staff he once had agonized over not being able to use suddenly began to react with him, a blinding light engulfing the green-haired woman as he concentrated his efforts upon her. In a few moments, as the light subsided, she began to jerk and come to. Ares rushed towards her, scooping her up in his arms as she coughed up blood.

“She’s really breathing…!” Lana cried out in surprise, surely shocked as a fellow healer.

It was then he stopped being able to fully sense things, the weight of the situation collapsing onto him. His eyes were wide but staring at nothing in particular, and his breathing grew unsteady. When he could sense the world around him again, the majority of the people were away and still cheering over Lene’s return. The only people to surround him at that time were Hannibal and Altena.

“Coirpre…! Are you unharmed?!” his father’s voice came to him with a sense of urgency.

The high priest rose to his feet with the help of his father and his mother figure, concern plain across their features as he still had that terrified expression on his face.

“What is it, Coirpre? Is something the matter?!” Altena cried.

“I… Lewyn was not lying,” was all he could muster himself to say in response.

* * *

Coirpre couldn’t really recall when he began chanting Blaggi’s name, but it became a lot more fitting now that he knew both the truth and that the truth held water.

When Lewyn had summoned him and Lene for a talk, the priest had not expected him to confess that the two were siblings and much less that they were the children of Father Claud of Edda.

He wished to deny it. To know he was the son of the former duke meant that he would be tied to the responsibility of a castle of Grannvale. His home was in Thracia, and it was at the side of his father and Her Highness Altena.

Grannvale was not his home.

Lene’s death came only as a fortunate coincidence. Shortly after, she suffered grievous wounds. She held little protection as a dancer compared to the rest of their peers, so it was only expected that if she were to be hit, the chances of her falling were not that low. Yet despite it all, she came back to life.

He had resurrected her with his own hands.

The only way to bring a soul back to the realm of the living was with the Valkyrie Staff, and the only way to wield it was to be a direct descendant of the Crusader Blaggi. The only direct descendant of the crusader was Father Claud, but it was not him who brought Lene back.

It was Coirpre.

Major holy blood ran through his veins, beckoning him to Castle Edda. It was a desolate place, surely ravaged by war, the Empire, and the loss of its leader over a decade ago.

Coirpre remained lost in thought as the victory of the liberation army’s final battle with the Empire finally settled in. When he came back to his senses, Seliph and Lewyn both were entering the palace. The cluster of soldiers, almost all of holy blood, stood there chattering about their futures. Some spoke of homes to return to, of places to rebuild, of lovers to accompany.

“Where do you plan to go, Coirpre?” Lene asked him.

“...What about you?” he shot back a question in return.

“Well… truth be told, I would like to join Ares, but…”

They did not need to say it directly to understand what was holding the dancer back. Steeling himself, the priest answered, “I’ll be going to Edda.”

“Huh?” she asked, surprised. “Not… Thracia? With General Hannibal?”

He shook his head. Taking a deep breath, he explained,  “My name is Coirpre. I'm Father Claud’s son…”


End file.
